The Why

We must find new ways of working together for better solutions.

Commons11 works to design effective technologies, products and experiences, collaboratively with the final user group to build innovative solutions that tackle social and environmental change.

There is a need for groundbreaking innovations for the complex problems we face in the world today. By getting out of our silos and mashing our skills and unique perspectives, we can create better solutions together. Cross-sector collaboration is important because a diversity of perspectives, combined with healthy dose of creativity and out-of-the-box thinking, is critical to addressing complex development challenges. It allows us to create tangible, needs-based solutions that are grounded in local realities.

That’s why Commons11 is focused on providing a unique approach and methodology to create spaces and opportunities for co-creation to occur. We work with a range of organizations, including:

Companies who want to develop their Corporate Social Responsibility policies

Social enterprises

Non-profit organizations

Companies working in digital media or mobile / web development

Government departments

Research centres

Foundations

Our goal is to design interfaces, products and experiences that are built collaboratively with the final user community to ensure more robust and inclusive solutions. We use and combine frameworks from various disciplines (including design thinking, human computer interaction and user experience) in every project.

Technology Design

We understand how technology can be a highly effective catalyst or tool to enact change, when used in the right way, and when placed within context. We help people to discover and harness the power of technology for fueling change within a wide range of industries. By combining our strategy with a collaborative creation process, we help people to connect technology solutions to real world problems. We work on projects at any scale.

We work with teams within companies to help them solve challenges that exist in their current product or services offerings. We bring together technical teams with other disciplines or departments to create a common language and understanding to work together and craft an ideal user experience or technology platform.

Product Design

Commons11 helps to create better and more accessible products by including the end user in the design process. For example, through water testing kits that connect with a mobile phone; low-cost assistive devices for people with disabilities or interactive guide books for newcomers to the city. In a market that is saturated with products that don’t work as well as they could, successful companies are those that are good at adapting to their customers’ needs in way that is intuitive and inclusive. We help develop strategies that not only meet their goal for intended use, but which also ensure that they have a positive social or environmental impact in their design.

We work with industrial and hardware designers to include the user in the development and building of new products. We help inventors and designers to access their target consumers at the grassroots level and facilitate participatory input on ideas and concepts to make the process more efficient. We aspire to help companies and individuals to create products that are made with materials that are sustainable and to create a well used product that fits the needs of the target consumer.

Experiences

Every day, people move through their daily lives interacting with and experiencing the world around them, both online and offline. In our eyes, the opportunities are boundless to improve on existing experiences, and create new – and more effective – ways of interacting. For example, by helping children to better understand the importance of ecology while walking in their neighbourhood park, or by helping a physically disabled person to easily find accessible pathways. This not only improves people’s well-being, but it also enhances our experience with the world, making our actions more meaningful and effective.

We use our process to examine, explore and redefine such experiences, to more effectively reach an organization’s goals while creating better everyday experiences, in a way that is fun and engaging. After conducting rigorous user experience research, we work to bring together the final user community with key stakeholders to ask the right questions, to ensure a better understanding of the needs at hand, and redesign processes to facilitate new experiences and interactions that are meaningful.